From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Oct 07 2002 - 15:16:38 MDT
--- "J. Hughes" <jhughes@changesurfer.com> wrote:
> In the letter I argue that human dignity requires control of ones own
> body, and the same principle applies - control of our bodies requires
> strong, democratic governments prepared to defend those rights. We
> need defense from violence and crime, for instance. And I would
> argue that we
> need a social democratic state, providing education, health care and
> other social goods, in order to fully empower people to control their
> own bodies and lives.
All an individual needs to defend and control their own bodies and
lives from tyrannies of any sort (including majoritarian democratic
tyrannies which James seems so enamored of), is shooting iron in one
hand and encrypted packet network devices in the other. To suggest the
individual needs tyrants to defend them from other tyrants is a pure
abdication of individual empowerment, and is the crux of the fallacy to
Hughes' entire philosophy.
>
> So the simple-minded dichotomy that leftists and liberals are
> collectivists (except when they accidentally end up defending
> individual
> rights) and conservatives are individualists (except when they
> accidentally support authoritarianism) doesn't really work for me. At
> least argue that libertarianism is beyond the traditional left and
> right.
Nobody has claimed it wasn't, at least as seen by the mainstream
political landscape. There is still a Georgist or Proudhonian tilt to
many libertarians coming in from the left side of things, while Hayek
and Rand seem to be the influences of those coming in from the right.
Because libertarians of all stripes take personal responsibility for
themselves and the future of society seriously, they tend to be more
militant and shrill about their own particular microdot in the landscape.
__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More
http://faith.yahoo.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:17:27 MST